03.11.2018
The recent speech in which US National Security Advisor John Bolton referred to Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela as the “troika of tyranny” cements the hardened stance which the Trump administration is taking against the Latin American countries, journalist Max Blumenthal told Sputnik.
Bolton spoke at Miami Dade College’s Freedom Tower on Thursday to discuss the latest round of sanctions that the US would be imposing on Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba in an effort to “defend the rule of law, liberty and basic human decency” in the region.
“Under this administration, we will no longer appease dictators and despots near our shores in this hemisphere,” the 69-year-old Baltimore native told eventgoers. “We will not reward firing squads, torturers and murderers… The troika of tyranny in this hemisphere — Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — has finally met its match.”
“The people of the region can be assured that the United States stands with them against the forces of oppression, totalitarianism and domination. Look to the north, look to our flag, look to your own. The troika will crumble, the people will triumph, and the righteous flame of freedom will burn brightly again in this hemisphere,” he concluded.
Blumenthal told Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear on Friday that Bolton’s remarks were “an intensification of [US President Donald] Trump’s policy toward Latin America.”
During his 30-minute speech, Bolton also suggested that the recent elections of Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez and Brazilian President-Elect Jair Bolsonaro were a “positive sign” for Latin America.
“John Bolton is really driving this policy,” Blumenthal told host Brian Becker. “The comments about Bolsonaro are particularly jarring, given that Bolsonaro’s own comments have called for basically depriving Brazilian indigenous people of all land, smashing the Landless Workers’ Movement, extreme anti-gay comments saying that he would rather his son be dead than be gay.”
“You have John Bolton basically celebrating the election of Bolsonaro as the real pivot that the US had been seeking against the pink tide, the kind of democratic socialist movement that’d swept across South America, and also to attack Nicaragua and Central America.”
Though new US policies toward Cuba are mostly a continuation of already established financial penalties, and those imposed on Venezuela will focus on targeting its economy, it’s still uncertain what exactly the US has in mind for Nicaragua. However, it may include a US-backed military coup, according to Blumenthal.
“Nicaragua hadn’t really been targeted this publicly by the US… there isn’t a lot of momentum for overthrowing the government there, but you can hear with Bolton that they want to kickstart the regime change process,” Blumenthal told Becker, stressing that the advisor’s agenda will be “extremely destabilizing for Latin America.”
Noting that the US has already begun to invest in military and diplomatic infrastructure along the Colombia’s border with Venezuela, the journalist stated that Washington was making moves similar the measures it took “when it sought regime change against Damascus.”
“This is an ominous prospect,” he said.
